{"id":4869,"date":"2012-09-15T00:01:27","date_gmt":"2012-09-15T04:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=4869"},"modified":"2012-09-14T23:54:53","modified_gmt":"2012-09-15T03:54:53","slug":"why-was-that-challenged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/why-was-that-challenged\/","title":{"rendered":"Why was THAT challenged?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Early in my professional career, I encountered one of our Library books which had been mutilated. The book was the Caldecott Award winner In the Night Kitchen<\/em> by Maurice Sendak. Mickey had fallen out of his clothes and someone had taken the time to carefully draw blue pants on him throughout the remainder of the\u00a0 book.<\/p>\n

Not too surprisingly, some people around the country had taken a different approach and formally challenged this book because they too felt the nudity was not appropriate not only for their own children but also for other people’s children.<\/p>\n

There are many other books for young people which have been challenged for a wide variety of reasons. Do you know why the following books were challenged at libraries or schools around the country?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nJulie of the Wolves<\/em> by Jean Craighead George was challenged because:
\nA.\u00a0 Unsuited to age group
\nB.\u00a0 Violence
\nC.\u00a0 Both of the above<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Captain Underpants<\/em> (series) by Dav Pilkey was challenged because:
\nA.\u00a0 Anti-family content
\nB.\u00a0 Unsuited to age group
\nC.\u00a0 Violence
\nD.\u00a0 All of the above<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Hunger Games<\/em> by Suzanne Collins was challenged because:
\nA.\u00a0 Anti-family
\nB.\u00a0 Insensitivity
\nC.\u00a0 Offensive Language
\nD.\u00a0 Violence
\nE.\u00a0 All of the above<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Bridge to Terabithia<\/em> by Katherine Paterson was challenged due to:
\nA.\u00a0 Occult
\nB.\u00a0 Satanism
\nC.\u00a0 Offensive language
\nD.\u00a0 All of the above<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And Tango Makes Three<\/em> by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell was challenged because:
\nA.\u00a0 Homosexuality
\nB.\u00a0 Sexism
\nC.\u00a0 Unsuited to age group
\nD.\u00a0 All of the above<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nScary Stories<\/em> (series) by Alvin Schwartz was challenged due to:
\nA.\u00a0 Religious viewpoint
\nB.\u00a0 Occult\/Satanism
\nC.\u00a0 Violence
\nD.\u00a0 All of the above<\/p>\n

According to ALA’s “Frequently challenged books of the 21st century<\/a>” page, the correct answer for each of the above\u00a0 questions is “All of the above.”<\/p>\n

And why is this important?<\/p>\n

As spelled out in the Library Bill of Rights<\/a>, we need to continually and proactively work to make sure materials are available for any of our customers who want them. It is up to individual readers — or the parents of minor children — to decide what to read.<\/p>\n

What do you think? How many of these challenged books have you read? Do you think it’s important to stay aware of books that are challenged? How do you work to make sure these and other challenged books are available for your customers? Share your stories in the comments below.<\/p>\n

Mary R. Voors
\nALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee member<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early in my professional career, I encountered one of our Library books which had been mutilated. The book was the Caldecott Award winner In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak. Mickey had fallen out of his clothes and someone had taken the time to carefully draw blue pants on him throughout the remainder of the\u00a0 book. Not too surprisingly, some people around the country had taken a different approach and formally challenged this book because they too felt the nudity was not appropriate not only for their own children but also for other people’s children. There are many other books for young people which have been challenged for a wide variety of reasons. Do you know why the following books were challenged at libraries or schools around the country? Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George was challenged because: A.\u00a0 Unsuited to age group B.\u00a0 Violence C.\u00a0 Both of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[272,144,10,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-intellectual-freedom-committee","category-blogger-mary-r-voors","category-committees","category-intellectual-freedom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}